the song of the summer is call me maybe, for the eleventh consecutive year,

I don’t remember if this was in the book or if I heard her tell a story in an interview, but I learned somewhere years ago that when Allison Bechdel sent her mother a draft copy of Are You My Mother? (Bechdel’s frankly very exposing graphic memoir about her relationship with her mother), asking for, I don’t know? Feedback? Permission? Absolution? her mother’s whole and entire response was “It coheres.” Two words and a period. And it’s absolutely true about that book and the most impressive thing about it, actually. The book collages an enormous amount of time and space and thought into a coherent piece of art. It could so easily have failed to do so, but it succeeded. I think about this all the time both because of the efficiency of Bechdel’s mother’s commentary and the myriad conclusions I find myself itching to leap to about her personality based on that single anecdote, but also because it got my thinking about coherence as an artistic value. As perhaps the final artistic value. So, you had something to say. Did you say it?

If I remember correctly it was an email, too, without a greeting or salutation, which is so white christian northeasterner it makes me want to scream. Not the point.

Like. Ms Helen Bechdel did not choose to share whether she considered her daughter’s work truthful, or necessary, or kind. She did not corroborate or contradict Allison Bechdel’s story about her. She only acknowledged that the story cohered. Which like, point one, master stroke, because it means she’s interacting with the work as a reader rather than as a character, but point two, maybe a story doesn’t actually have to be truthful or necessary or kind. Maybe that isn’t what storytelling is. Maybe a story just has to cohere. Certainly someone being told a story from the outside doesn’t have the tools to know if a story was honest. When you’re told a story you only know if it coheres. How much of what we think of as honesty and courage in storytelling is really just coherence. I’ve been a little crazy about this anecdote since I was roughly fifteen.

It’s clear who is winning

the first rule of fight club is to construct intricate rituals that allow you to touch the skin of other men

another heavy handed symbolism moment: my mom has a potted sunflower in the kitchen. because it is a sunflower, it keeps turning towards the light from the window. my mother keeps rotating it so it faces inward because she wants "to see its beautiful petals and have it really brighten up the space!" . the sunflower is visibly wilting .

LET THEM KNOW!!! LET LIL BOYS KNOW.

6 hour workday maximum i’m not kidding, if it can’t be done in that timeframe it doesn’t need doing.

this doesn't apply to jobs like childcare

If i worked in childcare and my 6 hours were up i would start putting babies in ziploc bags and shipping them to Turkmenistan listed as endangered fruits and vegetables

does anyone know when we get to stop being afraid

people who are like "oh but you can just buy x thing online" are missing the point. its about the joy and journey

"just find it on amazon" what next. do you want me to throw rocks at babies too

we have to stop moralizing the human condition and start jerking each other off while making out

Bruh what if we lived together 😳😳😳and had a garden😳😳😳😳